Robert Michael Smith has been an active pioneer of digital sculpture, 3D computer visualization/animation, Web design, virtual sculptures for the Web, as well as a significant art and technology educator as Associate Professor of art and technology at New York Institute of Technology Fine Arts Department. Smith is also NYIT Middle East Fine Arts Computer Graphics Coordinator for Global Exchange Programs at Amman, Jordan; Kingdom of Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Smith’s work has been exhibited worldwide for over thirty years including the acclaimed Digital Stone Exhibition at Beijing Today Art Museum, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Chongqing Jinse Gallery, and Wenzhou ArtMap Gallery. Smith’s sculpture “Paradise Bird Burlesque” is included in the permanent collection of China National Museum of Fine Art at Beijing. Smith has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities, international conferences, and featured in several international articles and books including “Art of the Digital Age,” published by Thames and Hudson.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Art is alchemy. Alchemy is the magic, observation, process and ritual of life. My sculptures, both virtual and actual, are conversations regarding the archetypal forms that are the basic structures of nature. I build alien abstract worlds that become familiar through frequent immersion. These worlds are constructed to open exploration to the deepest regions of the human psyche for development within the landscape of the imagination.

During the past several years I have worked with Asian artisans to realize in stone, metal, and wood the fantastic forms that I have been developing in Cyberspace since the early 1990s after introduction to the first professional level modeling and animation software application for the PC. This development afforded the quantum aesthetic leap that has impacted my work for the past twenty years by significantly speeding up the dimensional design process while simultaneously allowing me to view evolutionary changes in my forms through time (animation).